Games & data
What the Tyson Games Leaderboard Reveals
A look at 574 daily results: distinct specialties, two sisters dominating Glyph Shift, and why winning more often doesn’t always mean finishing ahead.
Looking at the weekly leaderboard in Tyson Games, I had a few impressions. Advanced Vector Deck seemed to be my strongest game. Joyce and her sister Candice seemed to be playing an entirely different game of Glyph Shift from the rest of us. I wanted to know whether the numbers agreed, and what else they might show.
I looked at 574 public results across 104 daily boards from October 5–17, 2026. That is 13 completed days, with eight boards per day and 16 players appearing in the results. The numbers largely confirmed my impressions, but they also made a few other specialties clear.
Glyph Shift belongs to the sisters
Joyce and Candice occupied first and second place in Glyph Shift on all 13 days. Candice won seven; Joyce won six. Nobody else broke into the top two.
The gap in raw scores was even more striking. Taking the ratio of second place to third place on each day, the median was about five to one. Even the runner-up in their contest was typically scoring several times as many points as the best of the rest of us.
The weekly leaderboard compresses that difference. First through eighth earn 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 leaderboard points. A fivefold advantage in game score still becomes a two-point advantage between second and third. You can see that someone is winning without seeing how far ahead they are.
Winning more is not always enough
My advantage in Advanced Vector Deck was real: I won 10 of the 13 boards. I also won 10 of 13 in Valerie mode, finishing second on the other three days. Target Number 24 was another strong mode, with six wins.
Across all eight boards, I won more often than Joyce. She still earned more leaderboard points over the period.
| Player | Entries | Wins | Podiums | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyce | 104 | 28 | 85 | 767 |
| Tyson | 104 | 34 | 68 | 747 |
Joyce reached the podium in 85 of 104 entries, compared with my 68. Her Wordgrid record was particularly impressive: 12 wins and one second place in 13 days. Between Wordgrid and Glyph Shift, she had two modes where a top-two finish was remarkably dependable.
My results were more uneven. I did not reach the Glyph Shift podium once in 13 attempts, averaging a little worse than fifth. Wordgrid was another relative gap, with an average finish of about three and a half. Joyce's weaker mode was Target Number 24, where she had no wins and averaged about fourth. We were making up ground on each other in different places.
The other specialties
- Hao leads Krypto. He won eight of 13 boards and reached the podium on every one. He also won five Target Number 24 boards and five Basic Vector Deck boards. Advanced Vector Deck and Wordgrid were less successful for him in this sample, with three podiums in 12 entries and one in 12, respectively.
- Candice has more than Glyph Shift. She had the most Pineapple wins, taking five of 13 boards, and reached the Wordgrid podium in 10 of 11 attempts. Advanced and Valerie Vector Deck were her relative gaps, with no podiums across six and nine entries, respectively.
- ddz is a Wordgrid challenger. Nine entries produced seven second-place finishes, one third, and a win over Joyce on October 17. The contrast with Vector Deck was sharp: no podiums in 23 entries across its three modes.
- leyanlo is consistently close in Advanced. He reached the podium on 12 of 13 Advanced Vector Deck boards, including one win. Almost all of his recent play was in that mode, so there is little basis for comparing his other games.
- Victor is a contender in Basic and Target Number 24. He won three of nine Basic Vector Deck entries and two of nine Target Number 24 entries. He also finished third in eight of 11 Glyph Shift attempts, frequently leading the group behind Joyce and Candice. Wordgrid was his largest relative gap, with no podiums in ten attempts.
Basic Vector Deck was much more contested than Advanced. Its 13 wins went to Hao five times, Victor and me three times each, and Joyce twice. Being strong in one version of a game did not guarantee the same advantage in another.
Two smaller samples caught my attention as well. evilryu finished first and second in two Pineapple entries, while Lucy finished third in two of three Glyph Shift entries. Those are promising results, though too few to establish a reliable pattern.
Showing up matters, too
Weekly points reward both performance and participation. During October 12–17, Joyce and I entered all 48 available boards. Candice entered 35, and Victor entered 21. Their lower totals partly reflect fewer opportunities to score, so the overall standings do not tell the whole story of how competitive they are when they play.
For me, the most useful finding is where improvement would matter. Finishing third in Glyph Shift on each of these 13 days would have earned 78 leaderboard points instead of my 49. That hypothetical gain of 29 points is larger than Joyce's 20-point advantage over the period. It would require a substantial improvement, but I would not need to catch either sister to make a meaningful difference.
I can keep trying to defend Advanced Vector Deck. But if I want to move up the overall leaderboard, getting better at Glyph Shift may be the more productive place to spend my time.